Why I never use Google Chrome dspite it being teh fastest

[RadiclDreamer]

QFT :ninja:

I agree as well, firefox is a far superior browser for me.

 

[Red Storm]

I've got no problems with Chrome. Maybe it's because I have a Chromebook that I also like? And I'm pretty deep into the Google ecosystem so Chrome just works nicely for me.

 

[Ichinisan]

That is true about installing to user profile and sandboxing, but one of our Dept. IT managers told us he has been seeing more reports of malware infecting the user profile folder since Chrome was the browser they were using. So now he is not a fan anymore.

If you install Firefox once with admin privileges, then you don't need them anymore to install updates anymore. (you used to in old versions)

"Malware infecting the user's profile folder" is pretty vague. Users can install malware, but Chrome seems to give the user a lot more control to manually remove whatever gets installed. I've seen Firefox plug-ins or add-ons where the option to remove it was grayed-out so you couldn't click it. It infuriates me that the browser doesn't give the user complete control over this.

 

[Ichinisan]

I'm forced at work to use chrome, and it is ok, some people do like minimalist approach.

as said above, non-customizable toolbars,

What kind of customizations do you want to make to the toolbar?

weak bookmarks management

How would you improve the Bookmarks manager?

(and display of them too, as in you can see only ones pinned to toolbar)

That's what I like. You're bookmarking too much if you need more than a handful, grouped into folders. For the rest, you just click "Other bookmarks" to see them.

Also, since my most frequently-used sites are already displayed, I don't need to waste space on the Bookmarks Toolbar for those.

, having to navigate too many things for basic tasks (a lot of clicking just to install an extension, for example) are my main gripes with it.

Huh? Chrome always seemed to require fewer clicks than any other browser in my experience, but I rarely install any extensions after Adblock Plus anymore.

And how did I forget it... no menu bar!

I'm a keyboard navigating fiend and I probably use the menu bar more than anyone, but the lack of a menu bar in Chrome doesn't bother. Vertical screen space is always needed. You can access the menu very easily. Without looking up anything, I found that these work:
[Alt],[Spacebar]
[Alt],[ArrowDown]
[Alt],[Enter]

Googled and found these:
[Alt]+[F]
[Alt]+[E]
[F10],[Spacebar]
[F10],[ArrowDown]
[F10],[Enter]
...so it's one extra key versus IE or Firefox. Big deal.

https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/157179?hl=en

It seems that Firefox lately is dying to look like Chrome (hoping to get back lost share by imitating )

When Firefox lost its major UI advantages, it was the final straw that made me switch to Chrome.

Chrome has some pretty serious UI sins too. I can't stand that the Windows version doesn't have the option to show the standard system title bar (the Linux version does or did). That means I can't use AeroSnap when I have a lot of tabs open (and I always have a lot of tabs open). When trying to quickly grab the titlebar of a maximized Chrome window, it just tears-off the tab since there's no titlebar. I'd be OK with it, if the UI designers would just add an invisible 1px area at the top that acts like a title bar -- not just to grab-and-drag, but also to double-click and right-click. When my left hand is on the keyboard and my right hand is already on the mouse, I frequently right-click a title bar and hit a key with my left hand to Minimize, Maximize, Restore, or Close. Not having a title bar in Chrome is a huge pain in the ass, but one that I tolerate.

 

[TheSlamma]

That is true about installing to user profile and sandboxing, but one of our Dept. IT managers told us he has been seeing more reports of malware infecting the user profile folder since Chrome was the browser they were using. So now he is not a fan anymore.

If you install Firefox once with admin privileges, then you don't need them anymore to install updates anymore. (you used to in old versions)

The only thing that has helped with malware in the Windows environments I administrate has been the UAC and then using privilege management. Browsers "helped" only cause IE is such a rag but it is more on the OS than on the browser from what I have witnessed.

Nix/Linux and OSX had sudo, it was time to take the queue from that and stop allowing a free for all.

 

[TheSlamma]

"Malware infecting the user's profile folder" is pretty vague. Users can install malware, but Chrome seems to give the user a lot more control to manually remove whatever gets installed. I've seen Firefox plug-ins or add-ons where the option to remove it was grayed-out so you couldn't click it. It infuriates me that the browser doesn't give the user complete control over this.

I think I know what he is talking about. In enterprise environments where you use roaming profiles admins who know what they are doing will exclude certain directories from what roams and compliment it with Folder Redirections, but you still have some folders and the registry that has to move and that is where I have seen it get hit. I've seen Chrome (and IE/Firefox) allow those fake Microsoft Security center malware things plenty of times, it writes itself right in the root along with your NTuser.dat and comes up from a registry startup. Plus since Chrome doesn't write itself to the roaming folder in environments like this it means your user is reinstalling every time. I don't think any level of sandboxing or whatever can help with that, I think it's the OS personally.

I will give Chromium project this, they have more and actually working GPO's for Chrome than firefox does, but I still can't get their ADMX to load, only the legacy ADM's.

When Firefox lost its major UI advantages, it was the final straw that made me switch to Chrome.

Palemoon or use the classic skin.

 

[postmortemIA]

What kind of customizations do you want to make to the toolbar?




How would you improve the Bookmarks manager?




That's what I like. You're bookmarking too much if you need more than a handful, grouped into folders. For the rest, you just click "Other bookmarks" to see them.

Also, since my most frequently-used sites are already displayed, I don't need to waste space on the Bookmarks Toolbar for those.




Huh? Chrome always seemed to require fewer clicks than any other browser in my experience, but I rarely install any extensions after Adblock Plus anymore.




I'm a keyboard navigating fiend and I probably use the menu bar more than anyone, but the lack of a menu bar in Chrome doesn't bother. Vertical screen space is always needed. You can access the menu very easily. Without looking up anything, I found that these work:
[Alt],[Spacebar]
[Alt],[ArrowDown]
[Alt],[Enter]

Googled and found these:
[Alt]+[F]
[Alt]+[E]
[F10],[Spacebar]
[F10],[ArrowDown]
[F10],[Enter]
...so it's one extra key versus IE or Firefox. Big deal.

https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/157179?hl=en




When Firefox lost its major UI advantages, it was the final straw that made me switch to Chrome.

Chrome has some pretty serious UI sins too. I can't stand that the Windows version doesn't have the option to show the standard system title bar (the Linux version does or did). That means I can't use AeroSnap when I have a lot of tabs open (and I always have a lot of tabs open). When trying to quickly grab the titlebar of a maximized Chrome window, it just tears-off the tab since there's no titlebar. I'd be OK with it, if the UI designers would just add an invisible 1px area at the top that acts like a title bar -- not just to grab-and-drag, but also to double-click and right-click. When my left hand is on the keyboard and my right hand is already on the mouse, I frequently right-click a title bar and hit a key with my left hand to Minimize, Maximize, Restore, or Close. Not having a title bar in Chrome is a huge pain in the ass, but one that I tolerate.

In toolbar I like to have some common actions, like opening bookmarks list (possibly there are 3rd party extensions for this), copy, paste, zoom, history, few extensions, etc.

For bookmarks, I like the sidebar that Firefox has, and quick access to them. I do have hundreds of bookmarks though. I don't trust search engine to remember what site I actually prefer to go to.

As for shortcuts
Firefox - bookmarks is on the menu bar. No menu bar on chrome, but I can do menu button -> bookmarks.
zoom buttons: Firefox: can be added to toolbar, so single click. Chrome: they are one more click away.

 

[squarecut1]

I used Firefox for ages, but now use Chrome

 

[Ichinisan]

In toolbar I like to have some common actions, like opening bookmarks list (possibly there are 3rd party extensions for this), copy, paste, zoom, history, few extensions, etc.

For bookmarks, I like the sidebar that Firefox has, and quick access to them. I do have hundreds of bookmarks though. I don't trust search engine to remember what site I actually prefer to go to.

As for shortcuts
Firefox - bookmarks is on the menu bar. No menu bar on chrome, but I can do menu button -> bookmarks.
zoom buttons: Firefox: can be added to toolbar, so single click. Chrome: they are one more click away.

Chrome shows the Bookmarks Bar on a new tab by default. You can make it show all the time with Menu > Bookmarks > Show Bookmarks Bar (or [Ctrl]+[Shift]+). The Bookmarks Bar also has a button on the right that takes you to the rest of your contacts. On a 16:9 monitor, I don't want to waste the vertical space on a Bookmarks toolbar. On 16:10, I'm OK with it.

The custom search engines feature also works like Bookmark keywords in Firefox (in fact, the keywords from Firefox bookmarks get imported this way). I set up key words to take me to specific pages that I access frequently.

The new tab page also shows your most frequently used sites. Makes sense to me.

 

[solsa]

chrome looks fine, works fast and does not suffer strange bugs. the only con is it needs too much ram but that can be because i use so much more.

 

[Towermax]

I stay as far away from Google as possible. That includes Chrome.

 

[Crow550]

I used Firefox for ages, but now use Chrome

Ditto. I tried to support Mozilla but I found each update just annoying me. I kept getting weird issues even after doing a clean install....

I was using Firefox and Chrome 32bit for Google stuff. I then installed the Chrome 64bit beta and it's been flawless and zippy. It's now my main browser.

Always willing to check Browsers out each update cycle to see how they are innovating. However at this time I am using Chrome 64bit.

Also switched to Chrome on my phone and slowly moving away from Dolphin.... Still have Opera Mini for when I'm in a super slow area but I don't want to derail this thread into Mobile browsing.

If you haven't tried Chrome 64bit. Make sure to uninstall Chrome 32bit first. Give it a whirl.

 

[crashtech]

I'm trying out Chromium 64 right now.

 

[Zodiark1593]

I'm a die hard Firefox user myself(on the pc anyway). Have tried other browsers for a short while, but I always found myself going back to Firefox.

However, having plenty of RAM is a must.

 

[bononos]

Ditto. I tried to support Mozilla but I found each update just annoying me. I kept getting weird issues even after doing a clean install....

I was using Firefox and Chrome 32bit for Google stuff. I then installed the Chrome 64bit beta and it's been flawless and zippy. It's now my main browser.

Always willing to check Browsers out each update cycle to see how they are innovating. However at this time I am using Chrome 64bit.

Also switched to Chrome on my phone and slowly moving away from Dolphin.... Still have Opera Mini for when I'm in a super slow area but I don't want to derail this thread into Mobile browsing.

If you haven't tried Chrome 64bit. Make sure to uninstall Chrome 32bit first. Give it a whirl.

Is 64bit faster? There no difference in speed using Palemoon 64bit vs 32bit. Do you have a test url for benchmarking?

 

[TheRyuu]

Is 64bit faster? There no difference in speed using Palemoon 64bit vs 32bit. Do you have a test url for benchmarking?

I went from the 32-bit dev branch to the beta branch not knowing it was going to install the 64-bit version of Chrome and just general day to day browsing is faster. This could just be a result of dev vs beta though so don't look into it that much. At the very least it isn't slower and I'm of the opinion that benchmarks really don't matter, all browsers are pretty much fast enough regardless of what they score on synthetics.

You really shouldn't be looking at 64-bit as something which is going to be faster (it can be slower for javascript things). It's the other things that you gain which is going to be the reason for using it. I should also highlight the fact that there is probably a net loss in security by using a 64-bit version of Firefox (or whatever browser based on that) since there is no flash sandbox for that flavor of Firefox.

This 64-bit beta version of Chrome uses HEASLR (on 8/8.1) and DEP is always on for 64-bit processes. When it comes to 64-bit browsers it's (likely) all about the security first, everything else sort of comes second. Also, as long as people understand that you're going to see increased memory usage with the 64-bit processes it all looks rather nice. I still cringe at the 150MB+ Adblock Plus extension process during browsing. It does highlight the (likely) poor programming/memory management of that extension.

In my opinion this 64-bit version of Chrome is probably the most complete browser on Windows now. You get the already excellent Chrome sandbox now coupled with 64-bit processes and since it seems to work fine for everything I've throw at it so far it doesn't really seem like you can go wrong with it. I'm sure there are probably a few kinks still to work out but it seems fit for daily usage right now (or at least attempted daily usage, hasn't broken for me yet over the past few days). HTML5 (youtube), flash and the built in pdf viewer all work fine which is sort of what you expect in their beta channel.

tl;dr Chrome was already good and (likely) the most secure browser on Windows. 64-bit only makes it better and it feels faster as well, as long as you enough RAM.

 

[Crow550]

Chrome 64 bit stable is out: https://www.google.com/chrome/browser/?platform=win64 (Suggest uninstalling the 32 bit version first. Make sure to tick "Also delete your browsing data."

Since once you login your Google Account it will re-download your browser settings, history and extensions anyways....

Also snag the App Launcher if you're not already using it. Really handy: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/launcher

Along with the Hangouts app if you don't have it. Pretty cool: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/...jgafhacjanaoiihapd?utm_source=chrome-ntp-icon

 

[Remobz]

I'm a die hard Firefox user myself(on the pc anyway). Have tried other browsers for a short while, but I always found myself going back to Firefox.

However, having plenty of RAM is a must.

My laptop with a mere 4megs ram is getting slaughtered by high CPU usage messages often these days

 

[bassoprofundo]

My laptop with a mere 4megs ram is getting slaughtered by high CPU usage messages often these days

If you have 4 megs of RAM, I'm pretty sure CPU isn't the limiting factor.

 

[nettrader]

Chrome has a good debugging program for pages, like internet explorer has. I use them both

 

[jeani]

Yeah I agree with Zxian, its a matter of taste. I too prefer chrome over Firefox for its speed.

 

[nemesismk2]

does anyone know how long will google chrome be available for windows xp? i last heard that google chrome will end in 2015 for windows xp. does anyone know when mozilla firefox will stop firefox for windows xp? yes i stil use windows xp sometimes.

 

[nemesismk2]

just found out that although google chrome will end in 2015 (sometime) although firefox will continue to be supported for windows xp.